The Apple Watch won't be complete until it gets this feature

At the moment, you can call and text people
right from your wrist, and you can even send taps or your own
heartbeat to other people's Apple Watches.
You can also use Siri to help you get your message
out.

But the Apple Watch is currently missing one
major form of communication: Video chat.

Your browser does not support the video tag.
YouTube/The Jetsons

When the first reports of the Apple Watch
surfaced in early 2013, it was likened to something Dick
Tracy or James Bond would wear: "A watch that
double[s] as a computer, two-way radio, mapping device or
television."

The first Apple Watch does a little bit of
everything — it’s a communication tool, a health tracker, and a
timepiece, of course — but there’s obviously room for
improvement. Recent reports also suggested Apple
cut
many exciting features from the Watch because it couldn’t get
them to work consistently, possibly to preserve battery life as
well.

But the Apple Watch is most exciting when it’s
doing something futuristic and fantastic: For example, paying for
coffee or groceries with your wrist is both exceedingly simple
(two button taps pulls up your credit card) and profound.

Your browser does not support the video tag.
Apple

I’d like to see more of these dramatic moments
on the Apple Watch. And the only way for that to happen is to
include a FaceTime camera.

The ideal device for FaceTime

I rarely like to use FaceTime, but I understand
its importance.

Screenshot

Videoconferencing has existed in the corporate world for decades,
but it’s only been a staple on personal computers and smartphones
for the last five years. Apple introduced FaceTime in 2010, and
Google didn’t debut Hangouts until 2013.

But talking to remote people in real-time has
always been something of fantasy: Disney imagineers brought the
idea to life in the 1980s and 1990s in the
Spaceship Earth ride, where you can see a little boy talk to
a Japanese-speaking girl through his television.

It helps friends stay in touch. It brings
spread-out families closer together. But if you don't have a
desktop computer nearby, it’s still pretty awkward to hold your
phone or tablet up to your face for a long period of time.

That’s where the Apple Watch comes in. Having
worn this device several times, I feel confident I could hold it
in front of my face for much longer than I could my phone. And
frankly, I can’t think of anything more futuristic and secret
agent-like than talking to a physical person in real-time on your
wrist.

Obviously, this would require the next Apple
Watch feature a front-facing camera for FaceTime. This could
impact battery life on both the Apple Watch and the iPhone,
especially since the Watch isn’t really designed to be used for
long periods of time.

YouTube/The
Jetsons

Still, I think it’s worth it to include this feature in a future
Apple Watch. FaceTime would be
much more fun on the Apple Watch, and the Watch would be more fun
with videoconferencing. Tell me you’ve honestly never wanted to
talk to people on your wrist like George Jetson. Maybe Apple will
even give us some handy tools so we can even draw on our bosses’
faces while we’re FaceTiming with them.